


Underneath A Concrete Sky (Lucy Puts Her Hand In Mine)

by novel_concept26



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novel_concept26/pseuds/novel_concept26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She says life’s a game we’re meant to lose. Stick by me, and I will stick by you.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath A Concrete Sky (Lucy Puts Her Hand In Mine)

Title: Underneath A Concrete Sky (Lucy Puts Her Hand In Mine)  
Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through S2.  
Summary: _She says life’s a game we’re meant to lose. Stick by me, and I will stick by you._  
A/N: Title and summary from Jeremy Messersmith’s “A Girl, A Boy, and A Graveyard.”

  
When she slips through the padlocked gates of the Lima County Cemetery (not a particularly difficult feat, given that Rachel is still the second smallest person in her graduating class, and the bars are intended more for the likes of her on-again, off-again boyfriend), she expects to find solitude and quiet. Perhaps an owl, silently wafting upon a summer breeze, or the flutterings of a bat out for its dinner. These are the sorts of things Rachel Berry is not known for appreciating, and she likes it that way; even the most powerful stars must keep _some_ secrets close in order to get away from squealing fans now and again.

For Broadway powerhouses, that secret might involve a back-alley coffee shop, or a bookstore rarely frequented by human life.

For Rachel, it’s a graveyard in the middle of the night.

To each their own.

It isn’t that she doesn’t appreciate the love and support found in her home, where her fathers treat her with great admiration (if a mild sense of detachment, thanks to the overbearing needs of careers); it’s simply that “home” is a place of work these days. Vocal training, school assignments, pressuring herself to be better in preparation for that elusive day in the not-so-far future when she will sling a bag over her shoulder and strike out for the big N-Y. It’s coming, faster than she has ever anticipated, and it is imperative that she be ready when that day arrives.

All the same, it’s exhausting to sit in the heart of that anxiety day in and day out. A reprieve is essential to keep her strength up and her enthusiasm running high. Which is why, once every two or three weeks, she slides carefully through her bedroom window and comes here: to a land where no one speaks ill of her nose or her fashion choices, where there is no demand for more songs or fewer ideas, where the night wraps around her like a blanket of the softest silence.

Kids at school would find it morbid, if they knew, so she doesn’t even try to explain. In fact, she has only shared her visits with one person, and he didn’t even understand why—but then, that’s Finn Hudson’s way. Comprehension has never been his strong suit, barring an understanding of how much he enjoys the taste of double-fudge brownies.

She shakes off the ill-tempered thought, determined not to spend this peaceful evening debating the pros and cons of her (currently-ex) boyfriend’s intellect. She’s tired of worrying about that, about whether or not their love (a word she’s rapidly beginning to lose faith in where Finn is concerned) is meant to last, about whether she should have spent more time with champions of higher regard instead (Jesse certainly understood her in a way Finn never will, and Noah was a surprisingly compassionate listener, once she had taken a firm no-sex stance with him). She’s tired of worrying in general, truthfully. It’s time to give her brain a rest, to find a companionable headstone to lean against and take in a few chapters of _A Tale of Two Cities._

She expects nightlife and comfort. What she finds, instead, is exactly the opposite.

She doesn’t think Quinn Fabray qualifies as “nightlife,” specifically.

Skidding to a stop in rain-dampened grass, Rachel stands for a long second and stares at the bizarre image before her. Quinn is stretched out upon a blanket, hands laced behind surprisingly-messy blonde hair, gazing up and up without an apparent care in the world. Her eyes are calm, her mouth relaxed; she looks, in short, like the utter opposite of the young woman Rachel has come to (disturbingly enough) care for during the span of Glee Club.

It’s impossible not to wonder, as she intrudes from a distance upon Quinn’s serenity, if this wasn’t what a girl named Lucy once looked like: gentle-featured, willing to embrace peace and quiet rather than the stomping ground of high school bureaucracy.

Rachel thinks she might have gotten along with Lucy pretty well, once upon a time.

It feels downright creepy to stand behind a tree and bear witness to Quinn’s silent repose, so Rachel squares her shoulders, hikes her purse up on her shoulder, and steps clear. Unshockingly, Quinn doesn’t notice in the least. She supposes she’ll have to just say hello.

 _Or_ , she thinks dryly, _you could walk away and spare yourself the aggravation. But where’s the fun in that?_

“Good evening, Quinn,” she says, softly so as not to startle the relaxing girl too badly. Quinn doesn’t move, or blink, or smile.

“Hey, Rachel.”

It’s better than she expected from a girl whose behavior towards her has been nothing short of alarmingly bipolar over the years. Rachel walks a bit closer, cautious as she might be while facing a potentially violent dog.

“May I ask what you’re doing here?”

“You first,” Quinn replies mildly, eyes fixed upon the scant stars above. Rachel bites her lip.

“I…” This is exactly the last person she’d like to share something like this with, since Quinn would happily take any cause to mock her and run with it to the ends of the earth. Still, if she’s hanging out in graveyards as well, perhaps she will be more inclined to take it easy on Rachel for doing so. It’s worth a try, she supposes.

Besides, Quinn’s head is rolling upon the balled up sweatshirt she’s using as a pillow, her eyes catching Rachel’s inquisitively. Rachel draws in a breath.

“I come here sometimes to get away,” she admits, keeping her voice as confident as possible. “It’s a good place to—“

“Think?” Quinn fills in, turning her attention back to the sky. Rachel nearly smiles.

“Stop doing exactly that.”

Quinn’s head shifts in a sort of nod, like she understands completely. Maybe she actually does; they both know there has been more to run away from in Quinn’s life than in anyone’s lately. Between the psychological remainders of her pregnancy and the shattered family, her world isn’t so picture-perfect anymore.

If Lucy is any indication, maybe it never was.

“So you’re here to not think,” Quinn observes, shifting one leg into a tented position and cracking her ankle. Rachel tries not to wince.

“In so many words, yes.”

Quinn glances sideways, mouth pulling tight for a moment. “Cool,” she says. Rachel blinks.

“I’m…sorry?”

“That’s cool,” Quinn repeats. “I’ve been here every night this week. Mom knows the groundskeeper from way back when, so he doesn’t get all shifty when I sneak in. I’ve just been doing my homework under this tree since Tuesday.”

Rachel wants to ask why Quinn would need to come _here_ to do anything at all, much less homework assignments, but she spots an expression of clouded exhaustion riding behind Quinn’s careless tones and decides to keep quiet. It’s strange enough that Quinn is volunteering information to begin with; she might as well just let that dice roll and see what comes of it.

“Your mother doesn’t mind you sneaking out at night?” she settles for asking instead, taking a seat on the edge of Quinn’s blanket. She fully expects to receive an insult for doing so, but Quinn doesn’t seem to care.

“I’ve already been pregnant,” she replies calmly, dark amusement dancing in her eyes. “Unless I pick up a meth habit on top of that, I don’t think she’s too worried about other shenanigans I could get into.”

Rachel giggles, but privately, she thinks that’s a little sad. Mrs. Fabray is all Quinn has left, and if even she doesn’t care where her daughter goes at night…

“Anyway, what about you?” Quinn asks abruptly. “Your dads don’t seem like the live and let baby girl sneak out types.”

“They don’t know,” Rachel says, knowing all the while that she probably isn’t speak abject truth. Her fathers are busy, yes, but not dense. They must have recognized her absence at least once by now, but in deference to her approaching adulthood probably decided to leave her be. It’s a mark of the trust level that she has always been so grateful for.

Quinn has returned her attention once more to the sky, and Rachel can’t help but inch nearer. “What are you looking at?”

“Stars,” Quinn says simply. “Can’t see much out here, but it’s better than home. “You ever just look up and think about how small you are?”

“I don’t appreciate jabs at my height,” Rachel teases, delighted when Quinn grins.

“Whatever, Tiny. C’mere.” She thunks a hand down on the blanket invitingly. Rachel scrambles closer, doing her best not to look overeager, and mimics Quinn’s position.

“I do look at stars, you know,” she says after a moment of just gazing. “All the time. They remind me of—“

“Who you want to be?” Quinn guesses. Rachel reddens, but nods, surprised when pretty hazel eyes turn to meet her own. “It’s not who you want to be, Rachel. It’s who you couldn’t help being if you tried. You know that, right?”

Her cheeks grow even warmer, her stomach fluttering in a fashion not entirely uncomfortable. On a whim, she reaches out and squeezes Quinn’s hand. “Thank you.”

“No need.” Quinn shrugs, shoulder bumping Rachel’s gently. “Too many people get too bogged down with making you feel small, Rachel. Not many of them take a minute to tell you the truth.”

It’s such a strange thing to say, and an even stranger person to say it. Quinn has spent more time than anyone making Rachel feel like the tiniest speck of nothing on earth, and yet here she sits, building her right back up again. It isn’t the first time they’ve been in a place like this, but Rachel finds it impossibly difficult to accept all the same. Compliments from Quinn Fabray always feel like they’re coming out of a dream world.

Then again, maybe this compliment wasn’t from Quinn at all. Maybe it came from Lucy.

“Why did you change your name?” Rachel blurts out. When Quinn’s face goes ashen, she wishes she could pull the words right back into her mouth, swallow them and spit out new ones. The hand she was holding draws away.

“That person wasn’t worth hanging on to,” Quinn says shortly, her clipped tone remarkably casual. Rachel bites her lip.

“I…I think she might have been.”

“And what do you know?” Quinn snaps. She pauses, reaching up to rub her forehead tiredly. “Sorry. You just...didn’t know. Her, or what she was like, or how she felt—“

But, of course, that isn’t true at all. Rachel knows exactly how Lucy must have felt. Rachel has been there more than anyone, and usually at the hands of—

“I think I would have liked her,” she insists resolutely, reaching again for Quinn’s hand. Astonishingly, it doesn’t pull free again. “I think I would have liked Lucy Fabray very much.”

The smile she receives is wavery, fiercely lonely in a way she never would have imagined Quinn to look before sophomore year. “That’s very stupid, Rachel.”

“It’s very _true_ ,” Rachel persists. “Lucy couldn’t have been all that bad. Quinn isn’t all that bad, and there’s no way Quinn and Lucy are that different. Maybe Lucy was a little heavier, a little less pretty on the outside, but…” She struggles to find her words, to string together the thoughts that have bounded around and around ever since Lauren Zizes put up that poster. “She looked happy. And that makes her more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Now the smile is gone and hazel eyes are brimming over. Quinn pushes herself into a sitting position and wraps her arms around her knees, one hand still clenched against Rachel’s palm. “That’s—you’re wrong.”

“I’m not,” Rachel replies. “Quinn, Lucy wasn’t the enemy you had to defeat back then. I’m sure of it. Your father, maybe, or your self-loathing, but not Lucy. Lucy was…Lucy was special.”

“You never met her,” Quinn snarls through tears, jaw twitching unhappily. Rachel smiles.

“How about now?” She yanks her hand free and holds it out again, right under Quinn’s nose. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Rachel Berry. You are?”

She waits, and for a second, she’s sure Quinn is going to haul off and slap her again. Then—

“Lucy,” Quinn says softly. “Lucy Fabray.”

Rachel squeezes the hand she’s given firmly and beams. “Now that we’ve been formally introduced, Lucy Fabray, would you like to watch the stars with me? I was going to read, but I find friendship much more engaging than Dickens.”

“You’re crazy,” Quinn tells her, sounding rather fond. Rachel pulls on her hand, drawing them both back down onto the blanket.

“So I’m told with great regularity. But, if I might remind you, my apparent insanity is what’s pushed us close to Nationals again.”

“You think we could actually take it this time?” Quinn wonders. Rachel shrugs.

“I think our chances will be considerably better now that Mr. Schue has stopped playing midlife crisis with Ms. Pillsbury.”

“Maybe it’ll help if you don’t make out with our bumbling leading man in the middle of a song,” Quinn snarks, laughing when Rachel takes a playful swipe at her shoulder.

“Quinn Fabray!”

“I thought it was Lucy,” Quinn taunts. Rachel shakes her head.

“I’ll try to control myself. Although, in the face of Mr. Hudson’s recent…foolishness…I’m going to go out on a trembling limb and assume it will be more difficult to restrain myself from kissing Santana.”

“Oh, please don’t,” Quinn groans. “Brittany will probably want to join, and then Santana will kill you both in a fit of Spanish curses. Then we’ll lose for sure.”

“You think homicide is better or worse than spontaneous kisses?”

“Hard to tell. There’s a definite layer of drama either way.” Quinn nudges her, still smiling. Her hand is warm in Rachel’s, comfortable. It’s much nicer than listening to an owl swoop through the trees.

They stay there for a while, and Rachel thinks. Quinn Fabray isn't her friend, precisely, and she certainly isn't someone Rachel looks forward to running into in graveyards, but there are times when Quinn isn't the girl who has spent years abusing her at every turn. There are times when Quinn Fabray is, in fact, the Lucy long buried...

And Lucy...a girl who stares at the stars and makes Rachel feel special, who holds her hand and smiles warmly...

Lucy isn't bad at all.

And whether Quinn wants to believe it or not, Lucy hasn't left for good. It's strange and compulsive, the realization that grips her with a mad, happy desperation: Lucy hasn't left for good, and Rachel hopes she never will. 


End file.
